The national residential landlords association has called on Govt to unfreeze housing benefit rates which have been frozen since April 2021. The private sector landlord body has also referenced the "warning" from the office for budget responsibility that Govt spending on housing related benefits is set to rise by just 0.1% of GDP in the period up to 2025.

We need to advise all members of the Edlington Selective Licence Scheme that Doncaster Council is currently carrying out a compliance audit against selective licence conditions and have asked that Home Safe requests certain information from our members to determine whether the members are compliant with the terms of their licence.

The ministry of justice has announced that, following a consultation exercise on legal aid provision, a new legal aid support service - the housing loss prevention advice service (HLPAS) - will be launched backed by an extra £10 million per year funding package so that "more people will get access to free expert legal advice to give them the best chance of keeping their home when they fall in to difficult financial times".

The homelessness code of guidance which local authorities "must have regard to when exercising their functions" in relation to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness has been updated. Whilst the code as a whole is too extensive and not suitable for use by private landlords, landlords in the PRS should be aware of the provisions dealing with eviction process situations, including section 21 notices.

An Ipswich landlord and his company, Francis Investments (East Anglia) Ltd, have been successfully prosecuted by Ipswich council and found guilty of 8 offences under the Anti Social Behaviour, Crime & Policing Act 2014.

Letting industry professional association Propertymark has said that a quarter of a million households have been lost from the private rented sector since 2017 and links this huge loss, in part, to the growth in the short term holiday lets market.

Throughout the last decade, Local Authorities have had to react and adapt radically to a series of almost existential (in some cases) challenges to how they provide services to their residents, businesses and communities. Those challenges won’t be fading away anytime soon and the importance of the role that local council’s play is evidenced in the way that much government support for sections of the public is being channelled through councils.

Wolverhampton council has successfully prosecuted a landlord for breaching HMO housing management regulations.

In September 2021 council officers entered the property with a warrant and found it to be in "intensive occupation"by tenants with separate rooms with locks on the doors, on separate contracts and with shared facilities but the property was no licensed as an HMO.

Writing for the BRE, Helen Garrett (national government data and insights lead) says that local authorities are key to ensuring that support reaches the most vulnerable groups but need to identify people in those groups, work out what are the most effective energy efficiency improvements and then decide how to deliver those improvements.

New research by the Ocasa rental platform seems to show that, for the time being at least, the private rented sector continues to be the preferred pick for many investors. The research shows that the rate of growth in the number of homes in the UK over the last decade was 7.5%, the rate of growth in PRS over the same period was 12.2%.